Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (413 page)

“Listen, Aglaia,” said Myshkin. “It seems to me that you are very much afraid that I shall be floored to-morrow ... in this company.”

“Me afraid? On your account?” Aglaia flushed all over. “Why should I be afraid on your account, even if you . . . even if you do disgrace yourself utterly. What is it to me? And how can you use such words? What do you mean by being ‘floored’? It’s a contemptible word, vulgar!”

“It’s ... a schoolboy word.”

“Quite so, a schoolboy word! Contemptible! You seem to intend to use words like that all the evening to-morrow. You can look up more of them at home in your dictionary; you’ll make a sensation! It’s a pity that you know how to come into the room properly. Where did you learn it? Do you know how to take a cup of tea and drink it properly, when every one’s looking at you on purpose?”

“I believe I do.”

“I’m sorry you do. It would have made me laugh if you didn’t. Mind you break the Chinese vase in the drawing-room, anyway. It was an expensive one. Please do break it; it was a present. Mother would be beside herself and would cry before every one. She’s so fond of it! Gesticulate as you always do, knock it over and break it. Sit near it on purpose.”

“On the contrary, I’ll sit as far from it as I can. Thank you for warning me.”

“Then you are afraid you will wave your arms about. I’ll bet anything you’ll begin talking on some serious, learned, lofty subject. That will be .. . tactful.”

“I think that would be stupid ... if it’s not appropriate.”

“Listen, once for all,” said Aglaia, losing all patience. “If you talk about anything like capital punishment, or the economic position of Russia, or of how ‘beauty will save the world’ ... of course I should be delighted and laugh at it... but I warn you, never show yourself before me again! Do you hear? I’m in earnest! This time I’m in earnest!”

She really was in earnest in her threat. Something exceptional could be heard in her words and seen in her eyes, which Myshkin had never noticed before, and which was not like a joke.

“Now, after what you’ve said I’m sure to talk too much . . . even . . . perhaps break the vase. I wasn’t in the least afraid before, and now I’m afraid of everything. I shall certainly be floored.”

“Then hold your tongue. Sit quiet and hold your tongue.”

“I shan’t be able to. I’m sure I shall be so alarmed that I shall begin talking and shall break the vase. Perhaps I shall fall down on the slippery floor, or somethinq of that sort, for that has happened to me before. I shall dream about it all night. Why did you talk to me about it!”

Aglaia looked gloomily at him.

“I tell you what: I’d better not come at all tomorrow! I’ll report myself ill, and that will be the end of it,” he concluded at last.

Aglaia stamped and turned positively white with anger.

“Good God! Did anyone ever see anything like it? He’s not coming, when it has all been arranged on purpose for him and . . . my goodness! It’s a treat to have to do with a senseless person like you.”

“I’ll come! I’ll come!” Myshkin broke in hastily. “And I give you my word of honour that I’ll sit the whole evening without opening my mouth. I’ll manage it.”

“You’ll do well. You said just now you’d ‘report yourself ill.’ Where do you pick up such expressions? What possesses you to talk to me in such language? Are you trying to tease me?”

“I beg your pardon; that’s a schoolboy expression too. I won’t use it. I quite understand that you are . . . anxious ... on my account (yes, don’t be angry), and I’m awfully glad of it. You don’t know how frightened I

am now — and how glad I am of your words. But I assure you, all this panic is petty and nonsensical. It really is, Aglaia. But the joy remains. I’m awfully glad that you’re such a child, such a kind good child! Oh, how splendid you can be, Aglaia!”

Aglaia, of course, was on the point of flying into a rage, butsuddenlya rush of quite unexpected feeling took possession of her soul in one instant.

“And you won’t reproach me for my coarse words just now . . . some day . . . afterwards?” she asked suddenly.

“How can you? How can you? Why are you flaring up again? And now you’re looking gloomy again. “Vbu’ve taken to looking too gloomy sometimes now, Aglaia, as you never used to look. I know why that is .

“Hush! Hush!”

“No, it’s better to speak. I’ve been wanting to say it a long time. I’ve said it already, but that’s not enough, for you didn’t believe me. There’s one person who stands between us ...”

“Hush, hush, hush, hush!” Aglaia interrupted suddenly, gripping his hand tightly and looking at him almost in terror.

At that moment her name was called. With an air of relief she left him at once and ran away.

Myshkin was in a fever all night. Strange to say, he had been feverish for several nights running. That night, when he was half delirious, the thought occurred to him: what if he should have a fit tomorrow before everyone? He had had fits in public. He turned cold at the thought. All night he imagined himself in a mysterious and incredible company among strange people. The worst of it was that he “kept talking.” He knew he ought not to talk, but he went on talking all the time; he was trying to persuade them of something. Yevgeny Pavlovitch and Ippolit were of the party, and seemed extremely friendly.

He waked up at nine o’clock with a headache, with confusion in his mind and strange impressions. He felt an intense and unaccountable desire to see Rogozhin, to see him and to say a great deal to him — what about he could not himself have said — then he fully made up his mind to go and see Ippolit. There was some confused sensation in his heart, so much so that, although he felt acutely what happened to him that morning, he could not fully realise it. One thing that happened to him was a visit from Lebedyev.

Lebedyev made his appearance rather early, soon after nine, and was almost completely drunk. Although Myshkin had not been observant of late yet he could not help seeing that ever since General Ivolgin had left them — that is, for the last three days, Lebedyev had been behaving very badly. He seemed to have suddenly become extremely greasy and dirty, his cravat was on one side, and the collar of his coat was torn. In his lodge he kept up a continual storm, which was audible across the little courtyard. Vera had come in on one occasion in tears to tell him about it.

On presenting himself that morning, he talked very strangely, beating himself on the breast and blaming hi mse If fo r so methi ng.

“I have received ... I have received the chastisement for my baseness and treachery — a slap in the face,” he concluded tragically at last.

“A slap in the face! From whom? And so early?”

“So early?” and Lebedyev smiled sarcastically. “Time has nothing to do with it. . . even for physical chastisement ... but I’ve received a moral, not a physical, castigation.”

He suddenly sat down without ceremony and began to tell his story. It was a very incoherent one. Myshkin frowned, and wanted to get away, but all at once some words caught his attention. He was struck dumb with amazement. Mr. Lebedyev was telling of strange things.

He had apparently begun about some letter. Aglaia Ivanovna’s name was mentioned. Then Lebedyev began all at once bitterly reproaching Myshkin himself; it could be gathered that he was offended with the prince. At first, he said, the prince had honoured him with his confidence in transactions with a certain “person” (with Nastasya Filippovna), but had afterwards broken with him completely and had dismissed him with ignominy, and had even been so offensive as to repel with rudeness “an innocent question about the approaching changes in the house.” With drunken tears, Lebedyev protested that “after that, he could endure no more, especially as he knew a great deal . . . a very great deal . . . from Rogozhin, from Nastasya Filippovna, and from her friend, and from Varvara Ardalionovna . . . herself . . . and from . . . and from even Aglaia Ivanovna; would you believe it, through Vera, through my beloved, my only daughter . . . yes . . . though indeed she’s not my only one, for I’ve three. And who was it informed Lizaveta Prokofyevna by letters, in dead secret, of course? He-he! Who has been writing to her about all the shiftings and changings of the ‘personage,’ Nastasya Filippovna? He-he-he! Who, who is the anonymous writer, allow me to ask?”

“Can it be you?” cried Myshkin.

“Just so,” the drunkard replied with dignity, “and this very morning at half-past eight, only half an hour — no, three-quarters of an hour ago — I informed the noble-hearted mother that I had an incident ... of importance to communicate to her. I informed her by letter through a maid at the back door. She received it.”

“You’ve just seen Lizaveta Prokofyevna!” cried Myshkin, unable to believe his ears.

“I saw her just now and received a blow ... a moral one. She gave me back the letter; in fact she flung it in my face unopened . . . and even kicked me out . . . only morally speaking, not physically . . .

though it was almost physical too, not far off it!”

“What letter was it she flung at you unopened?”

“Why . . . he-he-he! Haven’t I told you? I thought I’d said that already. ... It was a letter I had received on purpose to give to ...”

“From whom? From whom?”

It was difficult to make head or tail of some “explanations” of Lebedyev’s, or to understand anything from them. But as far as he could make out, Myshkin gathered that the letter had been brought in the early morning to Vera Lebedyev by the servant girl, to be delivered to the person to whom it was addressed . . . “just as before . . . just as before to a certain personage, and from the same person. (For I designate one of them a ‘person’ and the other only a ‘personage,’ as derogatory and distinguishing; for there is a great distinction between an innocent and high-born young lady of a general’s family . . . and a lady of the other sort.) And so the letter was from that ‘person’ beginning with the letter ‘A’ ...”

“How can that be? To Nastasya Filippovna? Nonsense!” cried Myshkin.

“It was, it was. Or if not to her, to Rogozhin; it’s all the same, to Rogozhin . . . and there was even one to Mr. Terentyev, to be handed on from the person beginning with ‘A,’” said Lebedyev, smiling and winking.

As he was continually mixing one thing up with another and forgetting what he had begun to speak about, Myshkin held his peace to let him speak out. “Vfet it still remained far from clear whether the correspondence had been carried on through him or through Vera. Since he himself declared that “it was just the same whether the letters were for Rogozhin or for Nastasya Filippovna,” it seemed more likely that the letters had not passed through his hands, if there actually had been letters. How this letter had come into his hands remained absolutely inexplicable. The most probable explanation was that he had somehow snatched them from Vera . . . stolen them on the sly and carried them for some object to Lizaveta Prokofyevna. That was what Myshkin gathered and understood at last.

“You’re out of your mind!” he cried in extreme agitation.

“Not quite, honoured prince,” Lebedyev replied, not without malice. “It’s true, I meant to hand it to you, to put it into vour own hands; to do vou a service . . .

but I reflected that it was better to be of use in that quarter by revealing everything to the noble-hearted mother... as I had communicated with her before by letter anonymously; and when I wrote to her just now a preliminary note asking her to see me at twenty minutes past eight I signed myself again ‘your secret correspondent.’ I was admitted promptly with the utmost haste by the back door... to the presence of the illustrious lady.”

“Well?”

“And there, as you know already, she nearly beat me; very nearly, so that one might almost say she practically did beat me. And she threw the letter in my face. It’s true she wanted to keep it — I saw it, I noticed it; but she thought better of it and flung it in my face: ‘Since a fellow like you has been entrusted with it, give it!’ . . . She was positively offended. Since she wasn’t ashamed to say so before me, she must have been offended. She’s a hot-tempered lady!”

“Where is the letter now?”

“Why, I’ve got it still. Here it is.”

And he handed Myshkin Aglaia’s note to Gavril Ardalionovitch, which the latter two hours later showed to his sister with such triumph.

“That letter can’t remain with you.”

“It’s for you, for you. It’s to you I am bringing it,” Lebedyev hastened to declare with warmth. “Now I’m yours again, entirely yours, from head to heart, your servant after my momentary treachery. ‘Punish the heart, spare the beard,’ as Thomas More said ... in England and in Great Britain. ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa,’ as the Romish Pope says — that is, I mean the Pope of Rome, though I call him the Romish Pope.”

“This letter must be sent off at once,” said Myshkin anxiously. “I’ll give it.”

“But wouldn’t it be better, wouldn’t it be better, most highly bred prince,... to do this?”

Lebedyev made a strange, expressive grimace. He fidgeted violently in his place, as though he had been suddenly pricked by a needle, and, winking slyly, made a significant gesture with his hands.

“What do you mean?” Myshkin asked severely.

“Wouldn’t it be better to open it?” he whispered ingratiatinglyand, as it were, confidentially.

Myshkin leapt up with such passion that Lebedyev took to his heels, but he stopped short at the door to see whether he could hope for pardon.

“Ech! Lebedyev, is it possible to sink to such abject degradation as this?” cried Myshkin bitterly.

Lebedyev’s face brightened.

“I’m abject, abject!” he approached at once, with tears, beating himself on the breast.

“You know this is abominable!”

“Abominable it is! That’s the word for it!”

“What a horrid habit it is to behave ... in this queer way! You . . . are simply a spy! Why do you write anonymously and worry such a noble and kind-hearted woman? And why has not Aglaia Ivanovna a right to write to whom she pleases? Did you go to complain of it to-day? Did you hope to receive a reward? What induced you to tell tales?”

“Simply agreeable curiosity and the desire of a generous heart to be of use! Now I am yours again, all yours! You may hang me!”